After Trump was elected, his negative rhetoric used throughout his campaign and published on his social media accounts spread through schools across the country. For example, at a school in Wisconsin, white students formed a human wall to keep Hispanic students out. This behavior is a direct response to exposure to Trump’s opinions via social media. Tweeting about building a wall caused students to physically build one themselves- already creating barriers between races only a few days after the election. Here, we see an obvious negative effect of the mobility of social media.

Campaign Tactics

So, if candidates can use social media as a weapon against their opponents, they can most definitely use it as a way to help themselves. Despite some of the shocking things he said on his Twitter account, academics say that his uncensored tweets were key to persuading voters. Trump would receive nearly double the number of Twitter mentions as Hilary Clinton each day, regardless of how negative they were. He also has about 40% more followers on Twitter than his opponent did at the time of the campaign. His tweets seemed to come directly from him, not a media team, which made them more persuasive to voters. This created a relationship with voters and ultimately started a movement of followers that continued to grow as his presence on Twitter intensified.

So- was it social media that won Trump the election? Some people may think so.